Phantasm
by aiko-san
Summary: With Link's return from Termina to Hyrule, he thought he could treasure the rest of his childhood until the point where past and future met at age seventeen but evil lurks to the west, waiting to pull Hyrule from it's peaceful reverie.


**PRELUDE**

With Link's return from Termina to Hyrule, he thought he could treasure the rest of his childhood until the point where past and future met at age seventeen -- but evil lurks to the west, waiting to pull Hyrule from it's peaceful reverie.

Legal Stuff: Oh yeah, I wish I owned them...but I don't. They aren't mine, nor will they ever be. I'd go on to blubber about it, but it'd be just a bit much for a legal speel.

-insert witty title here-: Eh, I'm not completely sure what I'll be doing with the fic, how long it'll take me to update, blarh blarh blarh. I'll forwarn you that if anything in the lines of the romance department to occur, it'd most likely be Link/Zelda, but I don't plan that far ahead. So sue me.

Rated: M, since I'm a pretty liberal writer ;; There probably won't be any M-rated stuff, but, I'm sticking on the safe side.

* * *

Her sequined shoes pinched terribly. She could feel the eyes of the dukes; the duchesses, the lords; the ladies...all following her. She peered wearily out the window to the setting sun, turning the castle garden and palisades a fair shade of orange. Before her, a tubby minister swayed back and forth, addressing her father to her right. Carefully she peered down and her court robe, it's brocade and silver thread glistening a bit in the early evening sun. She picked at it, trying to ignore the uncomfortable sensation she was receiving as she so dearly wanted to put her head in the palm of her hand, kick off her cramping silver shoes and run off to the castle gardens and find a seat under a tree, the autumn breeze blowing softly against her face...

"- and I assume her majesty the Princess would oblige to such?" The ample official turned to face her, and with such the court did as well, causing her to crash from her reverie. Her father regarded her keenly from the corner of his eye, awaiting her response. It would be terrible etiquette to admit to not having listened to the endless droning that was the minister's proposition. A bell was ringing within her mind, telling her not to ask him to repeat. Anything. Anything at all would do.

"I must formally request that your justice provide further information on his proposition." As the court rumbled in quiet appreciation, Zelda reminded herself mentally to pay even the most vague attention this time around.

"Most certainly, Princess. I was just saying to his Majesty and the court how beneficial it would be to the kingdom of Hyrule if you acted as a monarch to our great land whilst your father is countering enemy forces to the west."

Her father was leaving? That was news to her.

"It would be an honor -" Began Zelda, trying rapidly to remember the minister's name, "- Dragonfield, but I feel that such a decision must not be taken in light heart. May I be allowed the time to make my decision?"

"Most certainly, your highness." He nodded curtly. Without appearing to do so, Zelda breathed a sigh of relief, not due to the nature of her decision, but rather because she remembered his name. Dragonfield. Issachar Dragonfield. To her side, she felt her father lowering his head to her level as Dragonfield turned to face the court once more.

"You are dismissed, Zelda." He whispered quietly in her ear, making no eye contact. She avoided any body movement other than her silent rising, at which the court nodded their heads in respect, and she turned silently and slipped down the stairs behind the wooden barrier between a Goran minister and herself, which led to an underground grotto, used for centuries by the royalty as means of exiting court. Between green vines filtered the glowing, dying sunlight. She lifted her head, to see Impa leaning up against the nearest pillar and eating an apple.

"How was it?" She asked, looking at Zelda with genuine interest. Zelda did not return the favor, but lifted her gown just enough to expose her slippers in the front so she could walk faster. She began to walk hastily through the passage, looking at her feet. It was, yes, her first court appearance. But it could easily be exciting as counting grains of sand.

"Fine." She said, turning to her right, where a short flight of steps led up to the courtyard, "Though I find it utterly pointless in an imperial empire."

Impa took the opportunity to slip her apple core into a nearby topiary, swallowing the last of it. "But if we were run strictly by the monarchy, Princess, I daresay the people would be quite a deal less happy." Zelda restrained herself from rolling her eyes as she continued to move onward past the symmetrical fountains and hedges towards the grand flight of stairs.

"Maybe we'd be best off without the monarchy, then." She said quietly, slowing her pace a bit as she passed a tutor and duke on an ornately carved seat.

Impa let out a quiet laugh. "And give up your duties and honors?"

Zelda sighed and stopped completely, looking up at the darkening sky. An errant fairy twittered by, it's orange light barely visible against the coral colour of the sky. There could be downsides to being a princess, despite the obligations. "I suppose not, Impa." Carefully she reached to the top of her head, which felt like it was lowering by the second thanks to her court tiara - she much preferred the unofficial one, that belonged to her mother, as opposed to the monstrosity that sat upon her head, shining almost obnoxiously in the light. She then continued onward up the stairs before her, birds departing their haven in a nearby shrub.

At the top of the steps was the pavilion, glowing marble pattern illuminated by the the light filtering from the doors and windows of the castle and the dying sunlight. She hurried across and opened one of the magnificent glass doors, slipping into the cool interior of the hallway.

She left Impa at the door to the grand hall and hurried through a passage behind a tapestry to her chambers.

* * *

No matter what a famous poet or noted philosopher may have said, tears most certainly did not relieve her burdens. They silently ran down her cheeks as she sat in her evening dress on the windowsill, nipping slippers long forgotten by the wash basin. Her eyes searched into the streets of Castle Town, and although far from the bustling nightlife she could imagine the playful yips and laughs at the local bar as they danced...around and around...she closed her eyes, trying to remember the smell of the gin mixed with the pine of the countertops. 

A gentle knock on the door, she dabbed her eyes swiftly with the elongated, overmade sleeves of her gown and pulled herself into a more ladylike position, sitting upright on the side of her bed. "Come in."

Her father stepped into the room, looking at her quietly. Slowly he paced at her bedside, hands clasped loosely behind his back.

"What am I to do with you, Zelda?" His speech was almost urgent, yet quiet and reserved. She sniffed, rearranging the cream coloured folds of her dress. "I fear that without your mother, I have raised you in such a way that you will never evade childhood. You ride astride a horse, are perfectly content climbing trees. Do you not wish to be a suitable queen?"

Zelda said nothing, but instead curled her stocking-clad feet a bit, so as not to let her father see that she was not wearing shoes.

He sat slowly on the foot of her bed, directly behind her, still she refused to look at him, but instead concentrated her attention on the tiny pinprick of light bobbing slowly on the grounds far away that was a guard's lantern. She felt him lift her court tiara slowly from her head, and slowly he cupped her chin in the palm of his hand, gently pulling her tear-streaked face to look at it as it sparkled in the light from a candle.

"This tiara is almost as old as the kingdom itself, Zelda. It was commissioned by the Queen Freya to the court jeweler after our victory against the Tyaguelians." Between the candlelight and her gathering tears, the tiara continued to shine offensively.

"Stupid woman." Was all Zelda could mutter, turning her head from her father's grasp.

"Do not speak ill of your elders, Zelda." Her father's face was slowly turning red from frustration.

"She was foolish, Father. I do not suppose with standards such as your own you failed to have learned how Queen Freya died?"

"With honor."

"No, father. She drowned in Lake Hylia. The gems sewn to her dress weighed her down."

"She was following her child, Zelda." Her father's eyes narrowed on her, and she felt him analyzing her every move.

"Who, after she clung to in an effort to keep from drowning, managed to swim ashore." Zelda looked into his warm brown eyes, fire dancing in hers. "She was mocked by the townsfolk for her lack of care towards her son."

"She is part of you." Was all her father could manage, returning his eyes to the tiara. Slowly the socially acceptable King seemed to fade to the loving father he was to his daughter, and he stood up, setting the tiara on the trunk of fine mahogany at the foot of her bed. He sighed and turned to her nightstand, where her mother's one glimmered slightly, light and delicate. Slowly he lifted it from it's resting place on a satin pillow and sat beside his daughter on her bed. Once more she turned to face him, and he carefully placed it upon her head. "But who am I to press your fate? Sleep, Zelda. I regret to inform you there will be more talk of this in the morning."

Nodding, she turned away from her father as he slipped silently from her chambers, approaching once more the window. The moon had fully risen, casting an eerie glow on the impenetrable cliffs surrounding the castle grounds.

Inpenetrable, rather, to everyone but a ten year old boy, or rather, who was one nearly seven years ago.

* * *

Tatl sat, unamused, on Link's shoulder, watching two grubby, portly men bicker at the bar. Link, it seemed, always preferred to sit in dark, shady corners - much to Tatl's disapproval. "You'll see." She'd say, "Some day, you'll be looking innocently at some man and wondering where he got his gauntlets, and he'll think you're out to get him and pull a knife on you." To this, he would always laugh and say simply, "And I, the Hero of Time, should be worried about this why?" 

He was fairly modest about it all normally, but when his decision was the 'wrong one', he immediately had to pull the "I'm the great Hero of Time so get out of my way." speech. She sighed and fluttered her wings, eyes darting around the bar - atleast the characters here weren't as shady as those in Termina.

Ah, Termina. During the long journey to Hyrule, Tatl had often wondered why they left - in essence, the land was very much the same, but, she supposed, the heart could never really leave it's home. Which brought her to another thought, as to why she had left her Tael in search of bigger and brighter things. In fact, Hyrule as a whole was smaller than Termina, but that was beside the point. Though she thoroughly hated to admit to it, she had grown fond of Link, and now she acted as his conscience above all else, which didn't really fit her personality. But now, she reminded herself, they were in the heart of Hyrule's Castle Town, and she'd be damned if she returned to Termina.

Her rapidly moving train of thought was brought to a screeching halt when Link's shoulder made contact with her miniature bottom, and she fell, or rised rather, hard.

"I think we should be leaving now."

Tatl flopped herself tactlessly back on Link's shoulder. "Better done than said."

Link either ignored this comment with particular ease or truly didn't care, and headed out the door, fairy in tow to where Epona was tied to a tree outside.

Little did any of them know the sinister forces brewing in the west.

* * *

AIKO'S SPEEL: Alrighty, pretty short prologue, gets you to the feel of things, if I do say so myself. I'll probably have the next chapter up by this weekend if we're lucky, but I can get lazy or, worse, complete and utter modest-shock (worry that the next chapter won't live up to expectations) so stay tuned. Go ahead and touch the remote, it's not like I could stop you anyways ;; 


End file.
